Hey guys. After a forced sabbatical from toyota ownership thanks to a roo accident, I'm back. This time with a 2012 1kd manual single cab. I picked this up from a friends brother for an absolute steal, due to the 497,000 klms. They had three of these hilux's and a ranger coming to the end of their service as veterinary delivery vehicles, fitted with refrigerated bodies. I purchased site unseen then a few weeks later got to take it for a test drive while it was in the process of being decommissioned, (fridge back, driver monitoring, radios and accesories etc removed) and was pleasently suprised with how it drove. I was expecting it to be rattly and a bit of a mess, but if I hadn't have looked at the odo I wouldn't have been able to tell it had those sort of miles. I took a list of parts it would need for rwc and set about sorting out a tray.
The tray was unsold stock from a friends business and had been gathering dust in a storage shed. It was built to suit a VDJ79 cruiser, and as such the headboard was far too high for the cab. We split it, widened the top post, made a ladder rack and sent it off for powdercoating.
With the tray fitted I set about preparing it for rwc and giving it a small tidy up. Rwc items were typical of any work ute, replaced brake shoes, skimmed the drums, a few bulbs, replace the bullbar indicator etc, it had also suffered from a clock spring failure, on my last dual cab this was done as a recall, but this model was not recalled. As it had steering wheel controls the part replacement cost from toyota was astronomical, about 500 i think. I sourced one from Machter for $50 delivered and it works perfectly. Cosmetically it needed a console panel as the driver monitoring system had been cut in there, pulled the bullbar straight from a wildlife incident, replace the grille badge, gave it a wash and fitted a dual battery tray, will put the sb12 from my last ute in it shortly.
I fitted my toolboxes, and with a few bits I had lying around made some courtesy lights for the drivers side box. Used a spdt door switch with a long arm on the top rib to contact the door when open and have a push button to override Pretty happy with how it turned out, although I would like to replace the LED strips with warm white, the ones I had on hand are cool white and have a very blue colour. Being as though there has been a few ute break ins and trailer thefts lately I would also like to hook up a central locking mech and an alarm via the door switch, but I don't really like this toolbox and will hopefully be upgrading soon so I may hold off until then.
When I purchased this thing I had planned on rebuilding it before I registered it, but I just cant warrant it at this stage, it drives great, no injector rattle, no smoke and feels quite strong. With the car I got the service history and to my suprise it has had very little work aside from general maintenance. A gearbox in the high 200's, an alternator recently, timing belts every 150k and a few insignificant items but no injectors, no turbo. I put this down to it having the same driver from new and only ever doing rural deliveries which are long trips. They had a pretty stout driver monitoring system and a very strict company vehicle policy so I'm sure that helped too.
I'll keep the maintenance up and see how many klms can be dragged out of it. Sure, it might blow up tomorrow but I'm quite interested in seeing how far it will go. I've decided that ill replace any ancillary parts that let go, but any short block damage and it'll be pulled for a full rebuild, although i do have a 1uzfe sitting here doing nothing.
No grand plans for this thing, Just a comfortable work hack that will do some light touring duties.